How to Restore Old Photographs: Affinity Photo

[@murderhill1947]

Boy Robin, you hit the spot. I've got a ton of old family photos that go back to the early 20th century. Good winter work for me.

[@RobinWhalley]

Sounds like you have your work cut out. I hope the video gave you some ideas.

[@ianbrowne9304]

Thanks Robin , some new work flows there for me follow

[@RobinWhalley]

Great. I'm glad I could help.

[@roebuck52]

Your tip about using levels to remove the sepia from the image also works on the colour cast in old colour photos from the 1980s. Thanks once again for a fine tutorial.

[@RobinWhalley]

You're welcome. Although I didn't mention it in the video, yes is works great for all sorts of colour correction work.

[@elliswashington1149]

Thanks for the informative video.

[@RobinWhalley]

You're welcome.

[@barryphilp7948]

Thanks for another terrific video - I have found that some tools work on some images but not on others - with the dust and scratches filter (1.8 version) I got much better results using Nik Define - most of the restoration videos use images that are not that difficult to repair this was a good example however the eyes on portraits are always a problem

[@RobinWhalley]

I'm glad that you liked the video. I agree, eyes are often a problem. With this image the lady is too far away to see them properly. There also isn't much in the original scan to work with. I will probably do another video showing how to remove a tear where the eyes are more visible.

[@1duesy]

Great video. Can you tell us the procedure in Photoshop? I'm not seeing the same Levels pallette. Thx.

[@RobinWhalley]

Thanks. It's the same approach in Photoshop using the Levels Tool. Select each colour channel in turn and adjust the black and white point to meet the start and end of the histogram. I've also published a video about using Levels in the past that might help kzbin.info/www/bejne/h2nNp2x_iKyras0

[@dro7684]

Thank you.

[@RobinWhalley]

You're welcome. Thank you.

[@acutube50]

Topaz Gigapixel includes a Face Recovery facility that can be used to improve faces. Best used after noise and damage removal and best for it to be toned down - a sharply defined face in the middle of a soft image can look a little odd.

[@RobinWhalley]

Yes, it's a good point. We should also be careful not to oversharpen the background in an attempt to sharpen it when it should be soft. Many of these old cameras were medium or large format and so had limited depth of field. I was quite surprised by how much detail was captured in this image given it's age.

[@acutube50]

@@RobinWhalley I recently worked on some scanned photos from WW2. The photos were 3" x 2". Surprising amount of detail off such a small print. The Topaz mask can be useful, even then I will sometimes unsharpen some parts, such as a gradual shadow, that shouldn't have been sharpened. It is like removing a veil over the past, bringing the subject back to the 'present'.

[@acutube50]

PS thanks for the video. It's much appreciated.

[@fandangofandango2022]

That's Very Good Tiger.

[@RobinWhalley]

Thanks.

[@danbuchman7497]

Very helpful Robin. I’ve been scanning old family photos to share with others and have been stumbling around to make corrections. If possible, correcting a damaged color image to remove color cast due to old age would be helpful. Maybe a topic for a new book! 👍

[@RobinWhalley]

Thanks Dan, I'm glad that it helped. Even if you are working with a colour photo, the Levels processing I showed in the video will still work. Give it a try.

[@acutube50]

@@RobinWhalley That's how I do it, assuming that white is white and black is black :). At the very least it gives a decent starting point.

[@ultradk]

Any benefits today for affinity photo v2 over v1 when restore?

[@RobinWhalley]

Not with the methods I've shown in this video. You may be able to use the edge live mask in v2 to help fix a cracked surface but other than that, I can't think of much.

[@ultradk]

@@RobinWhalley Thanks. Alas since the great price it might still worth getting. Hence updates?..

[@FrostSpectre-f7b]

You have a good place

[@RobinWhalley]

Thanks

[@Rockercaruthonyoutube]

Sounds a bit more complex than some photo restoration apps, nice for someone to show us how to use adobe photoshop. Their are apps that do the same thing with less work.

[@RobinWhalley]

Here's the test I did on Photoshop. kzbin.info/www/bejne/j5K9fa2rjcmAqKc Like most of the apps that claim to fix photo, you couldn't use them commercially except on simple jobs. The Photoshop filter is a bit more interesting in that it can save you hours of work. You still bneed to do some things manually (at the moment) though.

[@amazingcatsworld5336]

There are apps that get the entire photo fixed in a few seconds instead of having to go this. Leverage AI instead of slow manual correction

[@RobinWhalley]

That really depends on the quality of the fix that you are willing to accept. AI is fast but the results aren't retail quality without additional work to clean them up.

[@amazingcatsworld5336]

@@RobinWhalley I think you are right after trying out photo restoration for the second day

[@RobinWhalley]

@@amazingcatsworld5336 Thank you. I'm not against AI but you do need to check the results carefully. What often looks good at first glance tends to have problems when you look carefully. I find it's best for repetitive work like cleaning up tiny scratches.